


Say It and Go

by Shaitanah



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaitanah/pseuds/Shaitanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft wants John to forgive him after Sherlock's 'death'. Somehow it feels necessary. [for cristo-nara]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say It and Go

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC.

Mycroft Holmes was a perfect gentleman. That was the way his mother had brought him up and things had gone according to plan in that department, unlike in Sherlock’s case. One of the most prominent points that she had successfully driven home was that perfect gentlemen did not make mistakes – and if they did, they paid for them.

 

Mycroft had made his share of mistakes. A little deficit of attention here, some display of hubris there. They never seemed to cost much. Not more than he could afford at least. Except the latest one. Some would go as far as saying that it was not exactly a mistake, but he refused to acknowledge that the way capturing Moriarty, torturing him for a non-existent key code and basically letting him go nuclear against Sherlock by using a missile of Mycroft’s own making had played out might have been something more than a miscalculation. Mistakes were easy to correct and easy to dismiss. Sometimes one even learned from them.

 

There was nothing to learn from Sherlock’s death.

 

It was quite a poetic demise, a fitting one for such a dramatic person; even without knowing all the why’s and the how’s Mycroft could appreciate the irony. Sherlock would never do such a thing. Yet Sherlock had done.

 

There was something wrong with this picture.

 

It didn’t take Mycroft long to figure it out. He didn’t have power over Sherlock’s fate but there was still that one tiny blunder he could maintain control over.

 

There were phone calls of course (and wasn’t the endless dial tone the most depressing sound in the world?). There was a choir of payphones ringing in the streets, an entire orchestra that one time, with cars honking and cameras spinning wildly. There was a construction site at night – and for once, even Mycroft found these James Bond villain-like goings-on a little redundant. But the good doctor ignored him masterfully – and something had to be done about it, preferably without attracting the attention of Moriarty’s henchmen that still acted like a dog with a bone when it came to John.

 

“I believe I owe you an apology,” said Mycroft without preamble.

 

John looked tired but composed. Not too different from when they had first met. John had been so brave, so adamant, a strange new player in the game Mycroft had known by rote since Sherlock’s childhood.

 

“For spamming me with text messages, having your assistant follow me around and finally kidnapping me? _Again_?”

 

“You wouldn’t return my calls.”

 

“I thought you’d have it all figured out by now with that big Holmes brain of yours,” John said. It stood for _I don’t want to talk to you_.

 

“I do owe you,” Mycroft repeated. He owed John many things, a lot more than he cared to admit.

 

“I don’t hate you, Mycroft,” said John. Weariness was not just on his face; more than anything, it was in his eyes, making them the hard, glassy eyes of a grieving man. “Sometimes I even believe I can stand you. But don’t push it.”

 

He turned around and began walking away, a bit of an old limp creeping back into his gait.

 

“Why?” Mycroft heard himself asking before he could consciously stop. The word cut at his throat as it clawed its way out.

 

John tensed visibly. For a moment Mycroft expected him to fail to recognize the exact meaning of the question: not _why won’t you forgive me_ but _why did Sherlock do this_. But the good doctor always caught on remarkably quickly for someone who was not… well, a Holmes.

 

“Fancy that,” said John bitterly without breaking his stride. “You _don’t_ know everything.”

 

“I’m sorry, John.”

 

That stopped him. That made him turn back in anger. In Mycroft’s view, anger was preferable to cold bitterness. It was a link, a bridge he could still cross.

 

“Why?” John asked. “Why is this so important to you? Why now? It’s over and done with. What does it matter what I think?”

 

Mycroft had been ready for this question but it rendered him lost for words nonetheless. Saying sorry had never been easy for him, but it had never been this difficult either.

 

“Because,” he said, deliberately, “I don’t think he would forgive me.”

 

John snorted. It was an abrupt reaction, verging on rude, yet completely innocent at the same time. He cleared his throat and gave Mycroft a small smile reminiscent of a condescending teacher talking to a dull-witted child.

 

“He wouldn’t be mad at you at all,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 

* * *

 

Routines helped. Sitting in front of the fireplace with a drink in his hand and doing the express not-thinking helped. Grief had to be processed, catalogued and left behind. This unfinished business with Doctor Watson was becoming too much of a hindrance.

 

As were the memories. Mycroft caught himself remembering small things, snippets of childhood that had long since been compartmentalized and stored in the attic of his mind. Like that Christmas when Sherlock performed an autopsy on a teddy bear with a pair of scissors and threw a fit when he couldn’t put all the plush stuffing back in. Mycroft had sewed the bear up and accidentally pricked Sherlock who couldn’t keep his hands away with a needle. It was a pinprick but Sherlock had acted like Mycroft had run him through with the bloody Excalibur, no less.

 

What did they matter now, these memories, these sentiments that always made Sherlock into a bull in a china shop?

 

Mycroft finished his drink. Maybe this time it would do him some good to go to bed instead of falling asleep right there by the fireplace.

 

“Tough nut to crack, isn’t he?” a question came.

 

This was the part where Mycroft allowed himself the smile of superiority and declared that he had known the big secret all along. Or this was the part where he complimented his brother’s resourcefulness and bombarded him with questions: how? when? what now?

 

Mycroft did neither of those things. He simply said: “Sherlock,” like it was not a name but a court sentence. Faking one’s death was such a cinematic move.

 

He rose slowly, smoothed down the creases on his shirt and turned around. Sherlock looked, for want of a better word, alive.

 

“I need your help,” he cut to the chase, all business-like. “I could put in a good word for you later.”

 

Mycroft barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Sherlock’s ideas of business transactions were rather amusing. Especially since when Doctor Watson found out he was alive, Sherlock would be the one needing recommendations.

 

“I shall not always be here to mend your broken toys,” said Mycroft, a little huffishly.

 

“What?”

 

He shook his head. Seeing John’s face _later_ could be worth the trouble.

 

“Nothing. Tell me what you need.”

 

_March 12–14, 2012_


End file.
